Temple of Diana: Midsummer

Summer Solstice
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_solstice
The summer solstice occurs when the tilt of a planet's semi-axis, in either the northern or the southern hemisphere, is most inclined toward the star (sun) that it orbits. Earth's maximum axial tilt toward the sun is 23° 26'. This happens twice each year, at which times the sun reaches its highest position in the sky as seen from the north or the south pole.


Midsummer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midsummer
Midsummer is the period of time centered upon the summer solstice, and more specifically the European celebrations that accompany the actual solstice or take place on a day between June 21 and June 25 and the preceding evening. The exact dates vary between different cultures.


Diana (mythology)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diana_%28mythology%29 
In Roman mythology, Diana (lt. "heavenly" or "divine") was the goddess of the hunt, the moon and birthing, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy. Diana was worshipped in ancient Roman religion and is revered in Roman Neopaganism and Stregheria. Dianic Wicca, a largely feminist form of the practice, is named for her. Diana was known to be the virgin goddess of childbirth and women. She was one of the three maiden goddesses, Diana, Minerva and Vesta, who swore never to marry.

Oak groves were especially sacred to her. According to mythology, Diana was born with her twin brother Apollo on the island of Delos, daughter of Jupiter and Latona. Diana made up a triad with two other Roman deities: Egeria the water nymph, her servant and assistant midwife; and Virbius, the woodland god.


Janus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Janus (Latin: Ianus) is the god of beginnings and transitions, thence also of gates, doors, passages, endings and time. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past. The Romans named the month of January (Ianuarius) in his honor.


Note
The stag or horned solar god, as well as the moon goddess, go clear back into the ancient world to proto-European peoples. Later manifestations (Etruscan, Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic/Gaulish, Slavic, etc.) all merged, co-opted, or co-existed with this earlier culture.


[Music: Song #1: 'Ready to Fly' by Verman Williams; Song #2: Unknown]

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Francis of Assisi (1961) - complete film

Francis of Assisi (film) [Wikipedia]

Francis of Assisi is a 1961 DeLuxe CinemaScope film directed by Michael Curtiz, based on the novel The Joyful Beggar by Louis de Wohl. It was shot entirely in Italy. The film was not a box-office success. It starred Bradford Dillman in one of his few sympathetic leading film roles (he usually played a villainous character onscreen, despite having originated the role of Jamie in the original stage version of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night in 1956).

Two years after the release of Francis of Assisi, Dolores Hart, the 24-year-old actress who plays a nun in the film, became a real-life Roman Catholic nun at the Benedictine Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut.


Plot

Francis Bernadone (Bradford Dillman) is the son of a wealthy cloth merchant in Assisi, who gives up all his worldly goods to dedicate himself to God. Clare (Dolores Hart) is a young aristocratic woman who, according to the film, is so taken with St. Francis that she leaves her family and becomes a nun. By this time (1212 A.D.), St. Francis has a well-established reputation for his vows of poverty. The movie goes on to note miracles (such as the appearance of the stigmata on Francis's hands and feet) and other aspects of his life, up to and including his death on October 3, 1226.


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I saw where this was on on the Turner Classic Movies network, and found it on YouTube. I watched it today. If you're a Cisalpine, you should see it. Even with religion aside, it's part of our history.

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Linda Evangelista: Supermodel

 

Linda Evangelista has been a famous "supermodel" for a long time now, having started her career in 1984; and has been featured on the cover of over 600 magazines. She was born in Ontario, Canada; of immigrant parents from Latium.

Linda Evangelista (from Wikipedia)

Born: May 10, 1965 (age 48); St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada
Years active: 1984–1998 (retired), 2001–present
Height: 5 ft 9 in (1.75 m)

Hair color: Blonde
Eye color: Blue-green
Measurements: 86.5-61-89 (EU); 34-24-35 (US)

Weight: 55 kg (121 lbs)
Dress size: 36–38 (EU); 6 (US)
Manager: DNA Model Management Models 1 Agency

Linda Evangelista (born May 10, 1965) is a Canadian model. She has been featured on over 600 magazine covers. Evangelista is mostly known for being the longtime muse of photographer Steven Meisel, as well as coining the phrase "We don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day". She holds the record for her multiple appearances on the cover of Vogue Italia, all of which were photographed by Meisel.

Early years

Evangelista was born to Italian parents who emigrated to Canada and was raised in a working-class, traditional Roman Catholic family in St. Catharines, Ontario, near Niagara Falls, where she attended Denis Morris Catholic High School. Her father worked for General Motors and her mother, Marisa, was a bookkeeper. Evangelista began modelling when she was discovered by an agent from Elite Model Management at the 1978 Miss Teen Niagara beauty pageant.

Career

Evangelista later moved to New York City and signed with Elite Model Management. She then moved to Paris to further her career. She worked extensively with fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh, who encouraged her to consider a short hair cut. Top hairdresser Julien Dy's cut her hair into what she described as "a bowl cut with sideburns". She cried during the haircut but it turned out to be the defining moment of her career.[citation needed]

Evangelista once said, "We don't wake up for less than $10,000 a day", (often misquoted as: "We don't get out of bed for less than..." or "I don't get out of bed for less than...") Spoken in Vogue (1990) to Jonathan van Meter.

In 2007, she signed a multiple-year exclusive contract with the cosmetics company L'Oreal Paris. It was announced in early 2008 that she would be featured in the Prada Fall 2008 campaign seen in magazines internationally.

She is signed to DNA Model Management in New York City, and Models 1 in London.

In June 2010, the New York Post reported that Evangelista will be the new face of Talbots.

Personal life

At the age of 22, Evangelista married Elite executive Gerald Marie. They were married from 1987 to 1993.

In 1999, she became pregnant by French football player Fabien Barthez. At 6 months pregnant, she delivered a stillborn baby. The couple then broke up and Evangelista left modelling for several years to recuperate.

On October 11, 2006, Evangelista gave birth to a boy, Augustin James, refusing to name his biological father, sparking rumours. While pregnant, she appeared on the August 2006 issue of Vogue. In late June 2011, Evangelista filed court papers that revealed her son was fathered by billionaire Frenchman François-Henri Pinault, by then the husband of actress Salma Hayek. After several court appearances aimed at establishing a child support agreement, on August 1, 2011, Evangelista formally filed for a child support order in Manhattan Family Court, seeking $46,000 in monthly child support from Pinault. It was reported that if granted, this amount "would probably be the largest support order in the history of the family court." A heavily-publicized child support trial began on May 3, 2012, and included testimony from both Pinault and Evangelista, with Evangelista's attorney claiming that Pinault had never supported the child. Several days into the trial, on May 7, 2012, Evangelista and Pinault reached an out-of-court settlement.

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